


I’m with you in Rockland

by newlyentwined (bluedreaming)



Category: GOT7
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Alcohol, Alternate Universe - College/University, Drinking, Gen, M/M, Minor BamBam/Mark, Minor BamBam/Yugyeom, Partying
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-25
Updated: 2016-05-25
Packaged: 2018-05-28 02:41:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,925
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6312208
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluedreaming/pseuds/newlyentwined
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Youngjae is standing against the wall, cheeks too red, an apple balanced on his head. Jaebum is standing a few metres away, dart poised in his hands, and Jackson can tell that's he's had a drink or two too many, stance a little wobbly as he pulls his arm back and Jackson starts shouting.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I’m with you in Rockland

**Author's Note:**

  * For [honne](https://archiveofourown.org/users/honne/gifts).



> The title is from III of Allen Ginsberg's [Howl](http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/49303).  
> This story is inspired by the Beat Generation, in an odd and kind of abstract way, and ended up being about several things at once while not being about any one thing in particular. The results are strangely. . .personal. You may recognize some of the events, as transposed onto different circumstances, with hopefully less tragedy. Everyone needs a Jackson.
> 
> Warning for intoxicated behaviour that is not safe/appropriate. (No sexual content.)
> 
> In case you're wondering about the end, in the words of [Frank Herbert](http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/34036), “There is no real ending. It’s just the place where you stop the story.”

 

The phone rings, sound splitting through his concentration as Jackson frowns at the sketch on his drawing board. Eyes flick over to the screen, but it's not a number from his contact list and the digits themselves aren't familiar. He shrugs, shoulders barely moving. Doesn't even wonder who's calling.

The phone rings again, a minute later, and the pencil in his fingers presses down too hard; smudges. "Fuck," Jackson mutters under his breath, glaring at the phone. The number still isn't familiar, and he just sits there, staring at it until it stops ringing.

And then rings again. Jackson drops the pencil on the white expanse of paper, graphite dust scattering across the blankness and lunges for the phone, thumb skidding over the screen to accept the call.

"Who are you?" he almost shouts into the phone, voice irritated.

"You actually deleted my number." Jinyoung's voice is deadpan, and Jackson doesn't give him the satisfaction of sighing.

"Why are you calling?" he asks, ignoring Jinyoung's statement. They're still technically dating, but the arguments have long since superseded whatever emotion is left.

"You're still my boyfriend," Jinyoung says, refusing to be derailed, and Jackson thinks about hanging up. Thinks about blocking Jinyoung's number entirely. Lifting a finger he notes, with absentminded curiosity, the smudged pencil graphite staining his skin.

Jinyoung will just borrow someone else's phone, probably Youngjae's, and at the end of the day they all still share the same flat. "This is why I deleted your number,," Jackson says, and doesn't bother saying anything else. He can already picture Jinyoung's expression on the other end of the line.

"Anyway," Jinyoung says, forging on, "I wanted to ask if you'd seen Mark or BamBam." There's a strange undertone to his voice, a certain hesitance that's uncharacteristic. Jackson stops flicking the pencil over the surface of his drawing board and starts listening.

"Mark and BamBam?" He knows there's a story there, everyone in university knows, really, but no one seems to know exactly what. And BamBam and Yugyeom from the music department are always an on-again, off-again thing, only muddying the waters.

"Yugyeom says BamBam was supposed to meet him for dinner," Jinyoung says, "except BamBam didn't show up at the restaurant and his phone says its out of range."

There's a clatter; the pencil Jackson's been holding up with his fingers now rolling down to hit the edge of his T-square.

"Out of range," Jackson repeats, because Mark leads recreational hikes sometimes, popular with the freshmen who take a glance at his face and think they'll have an easy time getting into his pants, and there's only one place BamBam could be that would be out of range of a cell tower. Only one place BamBam and Mark, together, are likely to be.

"Did you call Jaebum?" Jackson asks, because Mark has been friends with Jaebum for longer than Jackson has been here, at university, rooming with Jinyoung and Youngjae. Jackson's pretty sure they're old family friends, the way his parents and Jinyoung's parents are decidedly _not_.

"He was buried in books," Jinyoung says, "he didn't even know what day it was." Jackson doubts the second sentence is true, but Jaebum, despite technically being in the same year as himself, is doing some kind of double honours major that shouldn't even be allowed to exist, and sometimes Jackson sends him messages just to make sure he's alive. If only because Youngjae would be pretty inconsolable if Jaebum ended up smothered by his own coursework.

"Okay," Jackson says, thinking. "Why don't you go pick up Yugyeom and drive out to the park, and I'll go home and find Youngjae and catch up later. Maybe something happened while they were hiking."

There's a pause, and Jackson knows that Jinyoung is thinking the same thing he is.

"Where else would they be?" Jackson says, and there's just the sound of an exhale before Jinyoung ends the call.

Staring at the phone clasped loosely between his fingers, Jackson thinks about the fact that sometimes, despite all the ways they go wrong, he and Jinyoung can always somehow go right when it really matters.

 

Youngjae's phone goes straight to voice mail, which isn't typical but isn't either too out of the ordinary, so Jackson just tucks his own phone back into his pocket, sweeping his pencils and protractor back into his bag and making sure the door of the studio closes behind him, lock engaging with a click. Even though he doubts anyone will want to get into the room, he's not the only one with a drawing board here and everything adds up, after a while, even if most of their work is done on AutoCAD these days.

Nothing can beat the solid tactility of pencil and paper. His bag is a comforting weight on his shoulder as Jackson skips the elevators and jogs down the steps. It's only a short walk to their shared flat, yet another reason not to leave despite the fact that sharing his living space with Jinyoung isn't as seamless as it used to be, but now's not the time or place to be worrying about it. The blue of the sky is darkening to navy, pin pricks of stars stabbing out from the dusky velvet, and if something has happened, Mark and BamBam are out on the mountain, without cellphone reception.

Jackson jiggles the key in the lock, pressing the heavy door to the frame with his knee because the old lock always sticks unless it's jostled in just the right way, and lets his shoulders slump slightly in relief as the lock finally clicks open. He's waiting for the day when it finally just quits, and they have to either batter down the door or go search for a locksmith.

"Youngjae?" he calls, flicking on the lights, but the flat is dark as he drops his bag off on the end table. A flicker of white catches Jackson's gaze from the corner of his eye, a note stuck to the refrigerator door with one of the alphabet magnets BamBam had brought over as a joke a few months ago.

_Party at Jaebum's place._

"Buried in books my ass," Jackson complains to the empty kitchen, electronic appliances humming in the evening gloom as he grabs a sweater from the rack and pulls it over his head as he turns to head back out the door. Judging from the smell, sweet and yet salty at the same time, it's probably Jinyoung's.

 

The party is pretty evident as soon as he rounds the corner; Jaebum lives in the dorms for some odd reason, just a few doors down from Yugyeom in fact, and the sound of the bass is thumping through the ground as Jackson takes the last steps up the sidewalk to the front door, where no one asks him for his student ID as he ducks under the wildly gesticulating arms of some masters student on a drunken philosophy rant, and enters the fray.

It's not that Jackson doesn't know a good party, and heck he's half insulted he wasn't invited to this one, even if it's on campus and he's made no secret of the fact that he's buckling down to business this year. There's something strange though, about walking into a party that's already been going on for too long; everyone is already is various stages of way too fucking drunk and it's not as fun, watching them lose their shit when he's completely sober and caught up in worry about Mark and BamBam and other things that seem much more important than beer pong and the freshmen yelling something about a keg down the hall.

Jackson wonders if he's outgrown the party stage. And then he wonders why he doesn't even feel sad about it.

"Have you seen Jaebum?" he asks a flush-cheeked girl who practically runs into him. She blinks, eyes refocusing, and shrugs. Her face is familiar, but he can't place her.

"Try the game room," she says, and sways on down the hallway, giggling as she somehow picks up another girl along the way. Jackson rolls his eyes and elbows through the crowd, shoving through the doorway into the low-ceilinged room, billiard tables forming a waist-height obstacle course as he navigates through the room only to find Youngjae standing against the wall, cheeks too red, an apple balanced on his head.

Jaebum is standing a few metres away, dart poised in his hands, and Jackson can tell that's he's had a drink or two too many, stance a little wobbly as he pulls his arm back and Jackson starts shouting.

"What the fuck is going on it here?!" he yells, waving his arms and dragging Youngjae out of the way as Jaebum, startled, lets the dart fly out of his hands to bury itself in the plaster of the wall. Jackson's not exactly sure where the spot it hit is in relation to Youngjae's head, but he doesn't really want to know either. Youngjae sways a little, leaning into Jackson who curses internally before slinging an arm around Youngjae's shoulder and leading him over to the sofa.

"It was just a game," Youngjae says, grinning up at Jackson, but his eyes are a little hazy and Jackson knows that his roommate only drinks when he's upset about something. It's probably Jaebum-related, and Jackson really doesn't have time for this right now except he has to. Jinyoung will have Yugyeom by now and probably BamBam and Mark are just delayed and—Jackson just sighs.

"Did something happen with Jaebum?" he asks, and Youngjae shakes his head before turning the motion into a nod. Glancing up at Jaebum, Jackson finds him leaning against a pool table, his hands clenched into his pockets, decidedly avoiding the sofa where Jackson and Youngjae are sitting. He looks forlorn, and the expression doesn't suit him.

"Jaebum," Jackson calls, and is met with startled eyes that forget to flick away. Jackson beckons him over. Jaebum hesitates but joins them, sitting a little separate on the sofa.

"I'm sorry," Jaebum says, and Youngjae just nods. Jackson's pretty sure he's not talking about the apple that's now lying, bruised, at the base of the wall. His phone buzzes in his pocket, and he pulls it out after glancing at Youngjae, hands still in his lap. It's a message from Jinyoung.

we got Mark and BamBam   
you ok?   
we need to talk

Jackson tucks his phone back into his pocket and chews on his lip for a moment before making up his mind.

"I'm taking Youngjae home," he tells Jaebum. Youngjae tilts his head, almost imperceptibly, towards the figure at the other end of the sofa, and Jackson continues. "You coming over or staying here?" There's a pause, and then Jaebum flicks a glance over at Youngjae who nods, just the slightest gesture.

When they get to the door it's already raining and Jackson's pretty sure, now, that he knows what happened with Mark and BamBam, but that doesn't change the fact that none of them have an umbrella. _Oh well, cold rain is sobering_ , Jackson thinks to himself. _Probably._ Youngjae pulls the hood of his sweater up over his hair, and Jaebum just shrugs.

The first drops of water fall, cold, on Jackson's neck, and after that it's just wet. _I should have blocked his number, _he thinks, but he doesn't really mean it. Behind him, he can hear the splashes, four feet hitting the concrete sidewalk as the three of them dart through the rain.__

 

**Author's Note:**

> The initial title, _what keeps the planets spinning_ , was from Daft Punk's [Get Lucky](http://genius.com/Daft-punk-get-lucky-lyrics) and is still oddly appropriate.  
> The initial inspiration for this story was [And the Hippos Were Boiled In Their Tanks](http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/the-young-generation-burroughs-and-kerouac-an-unpublished-collaboration-986188.html) by William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac.  
> A huge thank you to A, for listening to my mental meanderings as I scripted this story.


End file.
